442 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. 



tlie Egyptian ports flying the British flag. The next in importance are Austria 

 and France, both ranking before Egypt herself, whose flag covers little more than 

 nine per cent, of local trafiic. 



Public Instruction. 



Of late years education has received a considerable impulse, although most 

 of the Mussulman schools are still mere kuttàhs attached to the mosques, and in 

 which instruction is limited to reading and writing and the recitation of passages 

 from the Koran. Besides the primary establishments there are several high schools, 

 in whicb, as in the University of El-Azhar, courses of mathematics and jurispru- 

 dence are added to the general curriculum. 



Since the time of Mohammed Ali elementary schools on the European model 

 were founded in some of the large towns, but most of these establishments have 

 been closed and replaced by institutions opened or supported by the various 

 European colonics and religious communities. The Egyptian Government has also 

 endeavoured to keep pace with the European States by founding higher and special 

 schools for secondary instruction. Moreover, there are at Cairo a medical college, 

 a polytechnic establishment, and other schools specially devoted to the teaching of 

 law, the mechanical arts, languages, mensuration, and similar branches of practical 

 knowledge. Nevertheless, most young men anxious to prosecute their studies in 

 the higher departments of science, generally prefer to finish their course in the 

 European colleges. 



Of modern European languages French is the most widely diffused in Egypt ; 

 but, under the new administration, the budget of public instruction has undergone 

 retrenchment, especially at the cost of the French teachers and professors. This 

 step would seem to have been adopted for the purpose of sooner or later excluding 

 the French language altogether from the civil and military educational establish- 

 ments of the country. 



Government. 



The government of Egypt still practically remains what it has ever been — 

 almost a pure despotism. According to the accepted political tradition, the only 

 right enjoyed by the mass of the people is that of paying the imposts and obeying 

 the law ; but, by a singular complication, caused by the action of a thousand foreign 

 intrigues and rivalries, the Egyptians themselves scarcely know whom to regard as 

 their true masters. Hence they have nothing to do except resign themselves to a 

 situation from which there is no escape, repeating the while the old Arab sajàng, 

 " The people are like the grain of sesame, which is ground so long as it yields 

 oil." * 



Ofiicially, the ruler of Egypt is a prince of the family of Mohammed Ali, 

 bearing the title of Khedive, which implies a rank somewhat intermediate between 



* Heinrich 8teplian, "Das heutige ^gypten." 



